


Faith in me

by LaughingMcNugget



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 14:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7762072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughingMcNugget/pseuds/LaughingMcNugget
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After another failure nearly leading to another death, Danse relents insecurities and his hopes for the Brotherhood's future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faith in me

The vodka was warm, almost hot as it had been left in the side pack just beside the V-01 kit’s fusion core. The added heat was something of a comfort in spite of the terrible sting of the substance against the thickly flayed slice across the Paladin’s cheek. A gentle hand dragged across the wound, trailing a scarlet cloth and the scent of blood and booze. Danse was weary; drained of a handful of blood and doused with hard liquor, brown eyes struggled to stay open under the fumes and the sting.

  
“Jesus Danse-“ the cloth stroked through the cut, followed quickly by a pair of tweezers that clicked and picked at bits of deadened flesh “-You need to wear your helmet.”

  
The Knight had tied a swath of canvas across his torso, holding in a long puff of the Commonwealth’s answer to sterile cotton: radragweed, soaked in a bottle of gin. A light red tinge seeped through the dressing, and the bedroll that separated them from the rough wood pallets it laid on was spattered with booze from the runoff. The powerful smell permeated around the pair.

  
“Wouldn’t’ve done me much good.” Danse slurred, sighing deeply when the sting returned to the gash across his cheek.

  
Nicole let the rag fall to her side, blood, booze and Mirelurk ichor soaking into the bedroll from her carelessness “You almost went blind from that hunter, asshole. It wouldn’t have deflected the _entire_ strike but its _goo_ wouldn’t have gotten in your cut.”

  
The Paladin heard her rustle through her pack, something metal chinked against the wire ring around her right pointer. A stim pack, bound in sterile wrapping and glittering prewar white. A good one, made from Vault 81, and it was torn into the filth of the Commonwealth to service him.

  
“A regular one would’ve been fine.” Danse tried to articulate, mouth feeling dry with the alcohol in his blood “I don’t need that much.”

  
Nicole pinched the skin of his cheek together, and patted a strip of canvas over the skin. A swatch of duct tape fell in place over it to hold the cut closed and minimalize the thickness of the inevitable scar. Thick, short fingers pressed the skin flat so the needle would jab in cleanly, almost painlessly. The skin just under the Paladin’s eye turned white just before the needle broke in, and a small bead of red crested from the puncture. Something like a pleasure moan broke the Paladin’s throat when the painkillers drove away the longsuffering sting across his face and chest. She wasted her supplies on him. In his mind, he was better for the pain.

  
“Leave that there for a few minutes, yeah?” She pressed her thumb over his scarred eyebrow, a melancholy smile pressing a dimple into her cheeks “You have to take care of this body, it’s the only one you’ve got.”

  
“My body is for the Brotherhood. Until death.” Danse said back, all of his stern force lost to the bobbling of his head to focus his stare on her.

  
“Then keep it protected to serve the Brotherhood for as long as you can.” Her smile faltered a bit, something clouding over her gold eyes “Danse are you okay? Like, emotionally okay?”

  
A roughly calloused hand folded over hers “Can I drink a bit before we have this talk?”

  
Nicole swallowed dryly, an icy stone falling into the pit of her gut. She chased it with a long, gagging gulp of warm vodka, stars flashing across her vision before she let the bottle free of her lips. Only a half dozen mouthfuls remained in the bottle by the time she handed it to the Paladin. She belched, an unpleasant gurgle following the noise. Danse downed the last of the bottle far too quickly, and a spurt of the liquid dripped from his nose and across the bedmat.

  
“Jesus Danse, cough it out!” Nicole’s hand met his back with a sharp ‘slap’.

  
Danse sputtered, wiping his nose with his sleeve. Only a moment passed between him shaking off his arm, and the Knight wrapping hers around his neck and cooing something calming in his ear. Hugs were still unusual to the Paladin, and though he found the proximity to someone else soothing, he rarely returned them. Now was one such time, hands hanging by his sides and shoulders hunched to keep her from squeezing him too tight and upsetting his dressings. He still sputtered, and a wave of shame rolled over the man when he saw a trail of hacked up spit in her hair. She wouldn’t care. She had been covered in his blood before. But the wave of embarrassment still surged across his cheeks.

  
“I’m going to break someday.” His voice was quiet when he spoke, though it echoed through the storm drain they camped in “Someday soon I’m going to falter on the field, and its going to cost me my life like it very well could have today. Or worse, it could cost the life of someone else. Like Keane. Like you. I could have died because of my lack of a plan and you could have been dragged down with me.”

  
She let her arms fall over his shoulders, the metallic hinges of her prosthetic snagging on his bandages only once “Well, you didn’t. You’re still here, and god willing you will be here for a long and healthy life.”

  
Danse was fully aware of her being prewar, but he knew she was barely 20 when frozen, and now she was barely over 21. So young. The hands over his shoulders bunched in the soggy white fabric across his back.

  
“I can’t loose another person I care about. Not after Piper. Please don’t throw your life away.”

  
 _Piper_. The reporter. The one who had taken up a relationship with one of the Minute Men and… fallen… at the battle for the Castle. And the child, Nat, who- _Danse shuttered in remembrance of the ordeal_ -snuck off to Goodneighbor to have her mind wiped much like a synth would. She now lived with Garvey in the Castle, believing him to be her adopted brother.

  
_What a mess the world is._

  
Danse snapped back into his booze dazed reality, and found that his nose was tucked into the crook of her neck “Loss is something we all have to deal with, I would assume you would know that by now.”

  
Stupid.

  
The hands across his back stiffened, and the heated elements of her prosthetic hissed to life when her fans began to cycle. Clear agitation was easy to identify on the woman, being that her lighted limb glowed with the thrum of her pulse. She released him, falling back on her haunches with a cool stare that mismatched her flaring plates and the bulge of a vein in her neck.

  
“I’m nearly broken too, Danse. Hell, I might already be broken. My son, the person I gave birth to, is out there with my husband’s kil-“ she paused, and the fans on her mechanical arm slowed “-What’s been troubling _you_ , Danse?”

She was long past petty anger, and knew it would do nothing to ease his mind. She liked to think it was his tutelage that made her calm down almost instantly.

  
“What I did was reckless today. I misjudged the depth of that pond and nearly drowned while you were left to fend off some of the more dangerous creatures in the Commonwealth. I was thoughtless and I could have gotten you killed.”

  
Danse’s hands shook, a tremor moving up his arms until his shoulders hunched and he wrapped his arms around himself “I know that the Brotherhood will guide me where I am needed. That I’ll be used, and spat out like every other high officer. End up old and broken, like Brandis, and then die someday when I couldn’t pull my weight.”

  
His palm hit his forehead, and he ground the heel of it against the bridge of his nose “I’m supposed to be the one helping you stay alive, I have more experience, more training, hell, I’m at least ten years your senior and I made a child’s mistake. I just… feel like there are others that would be more suited for my position. And Arthur won’t demote me for anything short of high treason, so I really have just the one option.”

  
She let out a breath, one that seemed to be full of pity and that was strong with alcohol “You’ve trained me well enough that I was able to defend you. Just like you have saved my ass plenty of times. We are a team.”

  
Her hand grabbed under his chin, and forced him to look at her “You might have years; good, solid years filled with smashing supermutant skulls, left ahead of you. Or tomorrow a raider with a fatman might make you little more than a bloodspatter and a fond memory. Neither of those things are certain, but you are here, and we are safe for now. Had you died out there I would have died as well.”

She made a choked back laughing noise “Those mirelurks today weren’t attacking me because they were still kicking the shit out of you.”

  
Her hands strayed to the tape across his jaw, delicately peeling back the corners to reveal freshly healed, pink skin where the slice once was. Another scar, another story of failure written across his face. The tips of her organic fingers trailed over the pink flesh, prodding, most likely to test the strength of the skin.

  
“I let you down today.”

  
“You can believe you let me down when I am cold in the ground. I’m still here, annoying you, aren't I? And you’re still here to bare the brunt of my antics?” she pat his cheek lightly, seeming to be satisfied with the way his skin healed.

  
Danse grabbed Nicole’s hand, and held it tightly to the curve of his jaw “You’re right. Fear of the future won’t do anything but make me vulnerable in the present.”

  
The smile he earned was heartfelt, showing off her straight prewar white teeth behind dry lips. It was fleeting, as always, and Danse didn’t expect to see her feel genuine joy until her son was safe. Her hands busied themselves in her pack, rummaging about for a box she knew had been pushed to the very bottom for safe keeping. Cardboard crunched and plastic wrap crinkled when she pulled out the little pink box. Danse forced back a laugh when she popped the box open and held a cake up to his lips.

  
“Consider this a celebration of another day surviving.”

  
The box was bumped from her hand, landing on the bedroll alongside the single cake she had pulled out. The Paladin’s arms circled her neck, almost crushing with the force of the embrace.

“Thank you for your faith in me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hurr this has been sitting in my files since april hurr


End file.
